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In search of Sasquatch! Part 2
By Chuck Allen
Post-Register Editor
Sunday:
Since I have a family and they occasionally like to be around me, my co-worker and I (Stacey Grigg, a free-lancer I picked up for the weekend.) don't get out to the Gorge about 3:30, just in time to see Tokyo Police Club finishing up their set. They seem to be a hit with the younger crowd.
We stick around for Beach House, which I know nothing about, but because of their name I imagine that they will be a fun, up-beat band like The Drums, who played earlier and I missed. Well, I was wrong. Beach House was essentially playing mellow chamber music that I was in no mood to listen to, so we hike up to the Yeti stage to catch Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears. With a name like that, they just have to be a fun band to listen to. We get our place about 100 feet from the stage and wait as the venue starts to fill up.
We're not the only ones interested in seeing what this band's all about, about a half dozen people ask us "Is this Black Joe Lewis?" as they see the band preparing for their set.
After a delay in the sound check, we finally get to see the band in all its glory. The lead singer Joe Lewis and the Honeybears rip into some good old R&B rock and roll with blazing horns, screaming guitars, thumping bass and saucy singing. It's just dang good fun and soon the crowd swells to twice the size as people flood the area to hear what all the fuss is about.
After hearing most of Black Joe Lewis' set, we head down to the main stage to listen to Cold War Kids. You probably have heard Cold War Kids and didn't even know it as "Audience" and "Hang Me Up To Dry" have both a very familiar air. They seem like nice, clean-cut guys, the kind of rockers you wouldn't mind having your mother meet.
After CWK, the anticipation starts to swell for Flogging Molly. I've loved this band for a while, but recently, thanks to a trip to Ireland this year to learn my roots, I've immersed myself in all-things Irish and I'm down in a big way for this group's flavor of Celtic Punk Rock.
They do not disappoint as lead singer Dave King sings, dances and bounces around the stage like a leprechaun on speed. Backed by fiddle-playing wife Bridget Regan and the rest of their bandmates, the LA-based group transports me back to Dublin with their songs about drinking, freedom, atrocities and death. Only an Irishman like King, who was born in Dublin, can make fun music out of such dour subjects, "We're not here to mourn their deaths, but to celebrate their lives," King says before playing "Tobacco Island," which is about the 100,000 Irishmen who were forced into slavery on Barbados.
And celebrate they do, along with several thousand people on the main floor who dance and bounce to Flogging Molly's Irish history lesson.
Flogging Molly's set ends all too soon. And we head up to the terraces to take a break to wait for The Flaming Lips.
At sunset, the Flaming Lips take the stage. coming out of a door on a huge semicircle video screen down a ramp. Then lead singer Wayne Coyne, who's long shaggy hair, beard and furry scarf make him look like the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz gets into a huge, inflatable hamster ball and walks out to the crowd who support him with their outstretched arms. It's probably the most dramatic moment of the set.
Here's the rest of their 90-minute set in a few words — Tellytubbies, songs about spider bites, balloons, birthday-cake tossing, dancing Dorothys, stories about dead friends, confetti and a view of Coyne's nostrils from the microphone camera that was blown up to fill half the stage. By the end of it, I couldn't wait for Modest Mouse to take the stage.
I'm late to the Modest Mouse deal, which is a shame because I'm finding that I love their songs. As with Death Cab, many of their songs really appeal to me. Their music is mostly fun, but it also has a much deeper meaning as lead singer/songwriter Isaac Brock packs some pretty interesting ideas into catchy music. On "Ocean Breathes Salty" he asks a question that I ask myself almost every day, "You wasted life, why wouldn't you waste the afterlife?"
So, anyway, Brock, who on this night seems the anti-Wayne Coyne, steps out in a humble gray hoody and screams, out the first line "This plane is definitely crashing," in the song "Sh-- Luck." Then he takes the crowd down a notch with the beautiful "Gravity Rides Everything," only to get everyone back up on their feet for "Dashboard." They play a 20-song set that spans their career and finally ends with "Spitting Venom," which was a perfect way to end because it showcases Brock's ability to go from singing normally to screaming to mumbling and amazingly he makes it all work.
I didn't get to hear "Ocean Breathes Salty," but I still leave very satisfied.
Monday:
Most of the day was spent doing family and other newspaper duties. We finally got out to the Gorge a little before 7 p.m. to hear acoustic guitarists Rodrigo and Gabriela, who are having a great time playing the main stage making sounds that seem impossible without electrical amplification.
When they bust into their tribute to Jimi Hendrix, the heavens open and heavy rain starts pouring down. It subsides as they finish their set and now some people around us are having fun sliding down the rain-slicked bowl of the upper amphitheater. It's good fun and nobody breaks any bones, which is a plus.
Portland's The Decemberists take the stage. The Decemberists are one of those bands that just leave me scratching my head wondering why they are not more popular. They play intelligent and fun folk-rock music that should have a mass market appeal. I can imagine my father-in-law, who is in his 70s enjoying the Decemberists and my daughter who is 11 loving them. I don't understand why they aren't on pop radio instead of crap like Ke$ha and Pitbull? It's an age-old question I guess.
The band opens with "Infata," which gets the soggy crowd's toes tapping as they dry out from the earlier deluge. As singer Colin Meloy introduces the band, he mentions that this will be back-up singer, fiddle player and organist Jenny Conlee's last performance with the band for a while. (He doesn't mention why, but Conlee, 39, will soon undergo treatment for breast cancer).
Prior to playing "Rise to Me," Colin mentions that the last time the band played Sasquatch! in 2009, a couple was engaged in what he called a "carnal embrace" on a bluff above the stage and said this would be a good song if anyone wanted to make a repeat performance.
The band ends with a rousing performance of "The Mariner's Revenge Song" as a storm begins to swell around the Gorge and lightening flashes on the hills.
Like many other people, we decide it's a good time to leave the Gorge and turn our backs on what was one of the best musical weekends of our lives.
Readers' Comments:
Joy:
What an interesting and unexpected write-up. As a local who LOVES almost every band that played Sasquatch this year, its fun to know Im wasnt the only person in Quincy who was able to enjoy the shows the Gorge had to offer.
Chuck Allen:
Thanks Joy!
Glad to know there's another person out there in Quincy like me.
